The Great Amp Debate - Amp appreciation

Attila

Now don’t beat me up I know that sound is subjective and is the total sum of the entire rig and environment So... lets move on

My ears tell me that I like the sound of something, but I’ve always battled to verbalise what I like in an amplifier, and have never had guidance from a guru to say this is so & so and it means this and that its good, bad or undesirable

To date I followed mainstream thinking, ala Marshall, Fender, etc. etc. so it must be good. Until reciently .....I came across a write-up from an amp builder on the EL34 forum, having read this I really LISTENED for the first time to my AX84 SE lead tube amp, applying his definitions and tried to rank mine accordingly …. I have to admit I have had an Eureka moment :woohoo:

Let me say upfront I don’t know if this is the best way or even the right way to do it, so I am looking at your input and conventional wisdom to make more sense from it.

- BTW "cork sniffing" is allowed -

Here goes... He rates three of his own amps :

Ratings: 0 = Poor 5 = Reasonably good 10 = Best amp I've played or meets my ideal expectation

Tweed Overdrive Special - Tweed Blues Miester - Carolina Songbird SE
1 channel amp

1 - Blooming - Notes that swell when sustained 10 8.5 6

2 - Clarity of tone with both lead and chords (not muddy) 8 9 10

3 - Overdrive Channel tone overall (smooth & sustain) with harmonics and touch sensitivity 9 8.5 N/A

4 - Smooth on clean and overdrive without gritty tone or overly bright 7 9.5 7

5 - Clean channel very clean tone with some warmth & fullness not brittle or too bright 7 10 N/A

6 - Contrast - good contrast between Clean and overdrive channels 6.5 8 N/A

7 - Harmonics - notes have sweet musical overtone with a touch of chime 8 6.5 10

8 - Tone Balance - Bass, Mids and Treble all nicely balanced with one another on both Clean and O/D 9 8 9.5

9 - Sustain - 10 8 7

10 - Touch Sensitivity Dynamics - notes and tone change dramatically depending on how hard
one picks also using vibrato is very musical 9 7 10

Hell I battled to get the colums to line up ..... Wotz sez you ???

AlanRatcliffe

I battled to get the colums to line up

When in doubt, use tables. ? Not the easiest elements to use, but very useful for this type of thing.

It's a good guideline - not everything applies to everybody (e.g. I don't like "bloom" and prefer an amp that has a cohesive sound across channels rather than the "contrast" he mentions and many players like a bit of grit to put an edge on a smoother guitar or to cut through). So you still have to decide which things apply to you, but still a great guide as to the kinds of things you should be listening out for.

Keira-WitherKay

I use tube amps for clean sounds only and for jazz but i'm at the point where i know what i like and can walk into an amp demo room and go from one to another and know within 30 seconds if i'll like the tone , cos it's that mojo or dark magic which i either hear in an amp instantly or not , it's not a tone tweeking thing and sure i can tweek a workable sound out of any amp, but we talking about preference here so yes thats how i look at it .

Attila

See Kiera its that "mojo or dark magic" i cant verbalise ..... either

Keira-WitherKay

Attila wrote: See Kiera its that "mojo or dark magic" i cant verbalise ..... either

well you not alone in that but i can say if i hear it i know it and it's pretty instant in my case but yeah don't ask me to verbalise it . In fact it's exactly that not being able to verbalise it that always makes me never want someone to build a guitar for me blind as in custom build unless they build it and then i can decide whether i want it , ? and no luthier will do that so i think i'll be destined to buy gear both amps and guitars i can hear first ?

MikeM

A lot of that is hyping his own stuff. Only a few of those elements are applicable in my opinion, many of the others being representing the same thing.

Also, the only real "black magic" I see in tube amps is transformers. I still struggle to believe just how much they can change tone, and how many aspects go into their design. Besides that, most of tube amps' response is known and understood (down to distortions brought in by individual components, i.e carbon comp resistors vs metal films, ceramic vs PIO caps.)